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Child Care Crafts Activities
Planning and organizing a variety of child care crafts activities for the children in your care is essential to their development. While doing arts and crafts activities is extremely fun, it is actually very educational for toddlers and preschoolers. It helps to develop fine motor skills, language, social skills, listening skills, creativity, and self-expression.
Fine motor skills involve the coordination of small muscles of the body that enable us to do such functions as writing and grasping. Holding a pencil, crayon, paint brush or other instrument used for writing and drawing helps to strengthen a child’s fine motor skills. Usually a child begins with scribbling, then moves to more intentional stokes to make various symbols and shapes such as circles or x’s. Eventually, the child will gain more control and coordination to write and print as well as draw more detailed pictures such as faces. At around 4 to 5 years old, most children draw a complete human with a head, facial features, body, arms, and legs.
Child care crafts activities help to strengthen children's language development. Children are exposed to so many descriptive words, color words, shape words, and names of all the materials used in making child care crafts and art projects. They learn how to use these new words, what context to use them in, and how to apply them in the real world. Children use language to describe and define their artistic creations as well as learn how to politely critique the works of fellow students. Children develop great social skills while doing child care crafts because they have to learn to share supplies, take turns, and work together.
Give step by step instructions with pictures or have pre-made child care crafts activities showing how the project should look at various stages as well as a finished project so the children can grasp an understanding of what their completed craft should somewhat look like. Being able to follow the directions given by the child care provider or teacher during the child care craft activity helps children develop good listening skills.
Don’t forget that it is not necessary to always have organized child care crafts activities. Children love having the opportunity to work freely with a variety of art products that allow them to experiment and explore the world of art. Give children blank paper or coloring pages with crayons and markers and let them decide what colors to use or what shapes and images to draw. They can further decorate their coloring pages or one of a kind pictures with stamps and stickers. Children also love to use dry erase boards with washable markers and an eraser. They can create, erase, and then create all over again. Painting is another fun activity that allows self-expression. A blank canvas, some finger paints, watercolors, or bowls of paint with sponge shapes opens up the creative mind. For some outdoor fun, there is always sidewalk chalk and other great drawing products from Crayola that can be used to paint on sidewalks. Of course, what child doesn’t like working with playdough or other modeling clay to form all kinds of shapes while using his imagination. Children love having control over their own choices which develops their self-confidence and independence.
Be sure to allow for enough time to adequately work on child care crafts activities. Some children will work very quickly while others will relish in taking their time to meticulously complete a craft. To save time on set-up, have all necessary craft components ready to go in a Ziploc bag or box so that you can hand everything out quickly. This should also help keep you from forgetting anything, then trying to scramble around looking for any last minute supplies. Prepare the area that you plan to use by laying down newspaper or using an old plastic tablecloth that can withstand unintentional paint spills or brush strokes. It’s also good to have each child wear a smock or old T-shirt to protect their clothing even if the children are using washable paints or markers. It is helpful to keep wet wipes or damp paper towels, trash can, and/or broom nearby to clean up any messes quickly and without having to leave the children unattended. Also, be sure to allow for enough time to clean up after working on any child care crafts activities.
Most important of all, make sure everyone is having fun while making child care crafts activities! If you would like some ideas or free worksheets to use at your home daycare or child care center, check out our growing list below. If you have any great ideas that you would like to share, please
contact me
and I will add it to the list along with your name.
Rain Gauge Project: Making a rain gauge is a simple and fun project that teaches children about measurement. To make a rain gauge, you will need:
- a ruler
- scissors
- plastic bottle (water or soda bottle)
- permanent marker
- tape
Use the scissors to cut the top of the bottle off about 1/4 of the way down. Invert the top and place it upside down in the opening of the plastic bottle. This will create a funnel for the rain to flow down through and into the plastic bottle. Secure the inverted top to the bottle with tape. Use the ruler to measure 1/2" increments and the permanent marker to write in the 1/2" measurements. Place outside on a rainy day and record the amount of rain. My own son made this one and put it outside on a hot, steamy summer afternoon when it happened to rain in Dallas. The rain we collected was yellow!
Making a Flag: For young children who are not able to use scissors yet, tear art is a great way to allow them to create child care crafts safely. In this project, we made an Italian flag to celebrate our heritage, but any flag from any country could be made using the same technique. The supplies you will need are:
- colored construction paper
- glue stick
Have the children tear small pieces of the colored construction paper. Simply glue the pieces on the background paper to create the particular flag that you desire.
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